Over the Treetops and Mountains
by eggdrop
Summary: Three years after the Beast was extinguished, the fate of the Unknown hangs in the balance once more. This story is an attempt to recapture some of the anxiety of the original series, as well as develop a wirtxbeatrice/"infinite eyerolls" narrative within the story's universe.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction. I do not know what I am doing. If I am screwing up, please let me know in as much detail as possible so I can stop doing that. That is to say: I welcome any criticism, so please, hold nothing back. I want to get better.**

**I had several goals in the construction of this story. Primarily, I wanted to express a coherent wirtxbeatrice/infinite eyerolls storyline that agreed both with (how I perceived) each character's personal motivations AND with the internal logic of the OTGW universe. I also wanted to retain some of the anxiety and urgency that drove the original story, and while this is centrally an extended "ship," I've also constructed it as an adventure in its own right. I have attempted to avoid explicating _too_ much of the metaphysics of The Unknown, though as the story progresses, you will probably notice that I necessarily involve some of the fundamental nature of the place in what's going on.**

**Additionally, I'm making several implicit assumptions throughout this story. It might be useful for me to outline those which may not agree with established or prominent beliefs within the fandom:**

**The Unknown does not represent the afterlife. The Unknown is a parallel (not alternate!) universe to the one we inhabit, and the liminal space between these universes is the garden wall itself. I make this assumption largely to make the narrative a little less convoluted, but I also don't think Beatrice, for instance, is dead IRL.**

**Wirt and Beatrice both clearly like each other. They are not entirely conscious of this fact during the original OTGW.**

**In the original story, Wirt and Beatrice were fifteen. Greg was nearly seven. This story takes place three and a half years later.**

**Wirt lives in or around Providence, Rhode Island, and the year is 1996 (so, 1993 for the original story). The Unknown is not attached to any kind of time period or place, but it functions as a reflection of rural New England circa 1880. I'm basing this on the existence of a "big top" circus, Georgian architecture, and photography, though I recognize that this choice makes some of the music of the original show anachronistic.**

**In terms of content warnings: If you could handle the show, you can definitely handle this.**

**Sorry for the long introduction. Here's the story.**

* * *

Chapter 1

_"Thus Time," I cried, "is but a tear_  
_ Some one hath wept 'twixt hope and fear,_  
_ Yet in his little lucent sphere_  
_Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming."_

"A Song of Eternity in Time," Sidney Lanier

There was a knock at the door of the old grist mill.

Beatrice thought it odd that someone would come to their homestead—which was, to her general dismay, truly in the middle of nowhere—at all, much less in the later hours of the evening, but she had developed quite a tolerance for abnormality over the last few years. She could not see who was at the door from her window, though her younger sisters often liked to tease that she spent all that time staring out of it so that she could be the first to lay eyes upon her suitor when he arrived. Not that any ever came, though. All she could see out her window was empty, black forest, lit only by the pale, waning light of the moon.

There was another knock.

Beatrice, roused from her inattention, stood up and carefully made her way out of the room she shared with her sisters, walking gingerly on the balls of her feet to avoid making too much noise, and was about to descend the stairs when she heard the door open. Her mother had beaten her to it, it seemed, but Beatrice's interest was piqued nonetheless. She sat quietly at the top of the steps with the intention of eavesdropping on whatever was happening below.

The bitter, cold air rushed into the house as her mother showed their guest inside. It was strange—April had never been this frigid, but ever since Wirt and Greg had gone back home, it was as if even the seasons themselves had succumbed to the malaise which threatened to consume Beatrice. It seemed as if the woods, even in summer, had grown colder with each passing year. The snow had finally begun to melt, but the trees looked dead, and the mud and petrified twigs that covered the forest floor made travel entirely unappealing, even to her wandering spirit. She repositioned herself on the topmost step, angling herself so that she could listen better.

Beatrice could only hear the hushed tones of their introduction when her mother had been at the door, but now that they were inside, she could begin to make out what was being discussed. The visitor spoke like a young woman, perhaps not much older than Beatrice herself, but with a bit more refinement and poise. It was rare that more "cultured" folk ever came out as far as the homestead.

"Please, let me take your coat. It must be freezing out there. Come, come! The fire is nice and warm!" Her mother offered as much hospitality as their household could manage.

"Well, thank you, but I'm actually here on somewhat urgent business-"

"Urgent?" her mother interrupted. Beatrice hated when she did that.

"Yes, urgent. I shouldn't be here long. Tell me, is there a girl named Beatrice who lives here?" Beatrice immediately perked up at the young woman's request, though she did not yet make her presence known.

"Beatrice? You mean my daughter, Beatrice?"

"Good, then I've found the right house. Is she here?" The stranger's motives were still entirely unclear, though she did not speak as if danger were afoot, nor as if she bore malice toward Beatrice or her family—only as if her charge was important.

"Why, yes, of course! You know my Beatrice? She hardly leaves the house anymore, the poor thing. Just spends all her waking hours daydreaming, or... just looking out a window, I suppose. Cabin fever can do quite a number on a young girl, particularly out here in the wilderness..." Beatrice's freckled cheeks flushed with both anger and embarrassment, but she remained motionless.

"Then she's awake? Good. My father needs to speak with her, _urgently_. I have a horse waiting outside and-" Again, the young woman was interrupted.

"Your father? Why, wait—you need to take my child to him? My dear, I don't mean to sound rude, but I don't even know who you are!" Beatrice's mother was not upset—she was more confused than anything, from the sound of her voice.

"Ah! My apologies, madam! My father is Mr. Turner—he's a lumberjack, or I guess he was. We live not too far from here." The girl was a little flustered, it sounded, and Beatrice was wracking her brain, trying to figure out what some lumberjack wanted from her. "I've spent quite some time riding through these woods, you see..."

"A lumberjack, you said?" _Ugh,_ Beatrice thought,_ yes, mom, that is, in fact, what she said_.

The young woman nodded, paused for a moment, took a small breath, then spoke: "He says he met your daughter in the woods three years ago. When she was a bluebird. He's very ill, and he says there's something he needs to speak to her about. I'm sorry, I wouldn't have disturbed you unless he thought it was important." The house was silent save for the crackling of the fireplace.

Beatrice stood up, slowly and deliberately so as to avoid creaking the floorboards, and walked down the stairs. Her mother was clearly at a loss for words; it was not as if the family had advertised their misfortune, and, moreover, her mother had been largely unable to extract any specifics from Beatrice regarding what exactly she had done while she was away. This was certainly the first she'd heard of any lumberjack. Isolated memories of that fateful night began to crop up in Beatrice's head—the old man, sprawled out on the snow, a wood ax at his side. The way his chest heaved with heavy, ragged breaths. The way his eyes pierced through the terrible darkness as he stared down Death's horrible visage. She shuddered.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and paused. She did not recognize the young woman, either by voice or by appearance, though she was correct in assuming that she was around her age. She had delicate, pale skin, big doe eyes, and dull brown hair that fell in slight waves around her shoulders. She wore a plain, heavy coat and muddy riding boots, but it was obvious that she was quite pretty beneath it all. With her was a large canvas sack, speckled with snow and mud, and outfitted with straps to be worn as a kind of backpack. Beatrice was sure she'd never seen this girl in her life.

"This... this is my daughter, Beatrice," her mother offered, still taken aback by the situation.

"You're the Woodsman's daughter?" Beatrice asked, anxious to skip the pleasantries. "Woodsman" was the name Wirt gave him when he spoke about him, and it had always made him sound like a kind of character, a role that be so happened to fill, rather than a person. It only now dawned upon her that he had a family—or even that he was still alive.

"Yes, that's right. My father asked me to bring you to him—he's very sick and may not have much time left, but he insisted that he speak with you. I've spent three days riding through this tortuous wood, trying to find this homestead. Time is of the essence, and he needs to see you as soon as possible—so we should go, quickly."

A log shifted in the fireplace, and a small shower of sparks danced around the hearth floor.

"Wait." Beatrice was unconvinced, and her eyes narrowed. "If it's so important, why couldn't he just have you pass his message on to me? Or write me a letter? Or... really, anything but this, which—I'm gonna be honest, here—would be incredibly, overwhelmingly suspicious if you hadn't mentioned the bluebird thing. In fact, you know, it's still pretty suspect. So what gives?"

"Beatrice..." her mother began to chide. This time, however, the young woman spoke up.

"I understand how sudden this must be, and believe me—I'd be just as cautious about it if I were you. But my father says that you're the only person left in this world who will understand whatever it is he has to tell you. He asked for you by name." The words seemed honest.

"'The only person left in this world'? That's what he said?" Beatrice asked.

"Those were his words. I know little more than you do, it seems."

Beatrice thought for a moment. If the Woodsman needed to speak to her, it probably _was _important. There was so much that she had seen that she did not understand. Finally, she exhaled deeply, then spoke: "Alright. I believe you. We'll go-"

"-tomorrow! You oughtn't leave tonight, you'll catch your death of cold for sure!" Beatrice's mother insisted. Beatrice shot her an icy glance.

The young woman thought on this—clearly, she had intended to leave right away, but it was quite cold outside, and the woods would be a challenge to navigate at night. "Okay," she conceded, "but we should depart at sunrise. We'll stop at an inn I know that's on the way for night, and should be at my father's by no later than sundown the next day. Beatrice, have you ever ridden horseback before?"

"Only as a bird, so I'm not sure that counts." Beatrice managed a wry smile.

"It's nothing to worry about," the young woman assured her, "just hold on to me—the roads around here can be quite perilous."

The conversation lulled. The crackling of the fireplace had dulled, and the fire had dimmed. The night was upon them.

"We can put you up for the night in the girls' room," Beatrice's mother offered, "though you may have to share a bed..."

"I appreciate it, but I do not think that will be necessary. I have a sack in my belongings; I can sleep in that." She gestured to her backpack.

"Whatever you'd like, dear. Beatrice will show you upstairs." Her mother looked at Beatrice expectantly. The young woman removed her boots and coat, leaving them by the door, and followed Beatrice politely up the staircase.

Beatrice's mother stood, alone, by the fireplace. The house smelled of smoke and aged wood; the aroma of fresh-cooked food was gone, and the house felt empty. She thought back to when Beatrice had left the first time—the time when she'd had the bright idea to assault a bluebird. Beatrice's departure then was born out of anger—she had run away, taking the dog with her, which was not a particularly uncommon occurrence for the stubborn, restless child—but ever since the ordeal had finished, it was nearly impossible to get her out of the house. True, she did seem more compassionate, more empathetic, but it was as if her anger had been replaced by melancholy; the happiness of those first few months back seemed like a distant memory now. Whatever had happened to her daughter out there in the Unknown, it had taken some time to finally sink in.

And now Beatrice _was_ leaving, but something felt wrong. Perhaps the trip would give her daughter closure. She had never questioned Beatrice about her absence, or about the boy and the frog she had left them. She knew her daughter too well.

The house was silent now. Night was upon them.

* * *

Upstairs, the Woodsman's daughter had rolled out her sleeping sack on the ground beside Beatrice's bed. The room was quiet, and Beatrice's sisters were fast asleep already. Beatrice, however, was awake with the anxious energy of imminent departure. She rolled over to face her new house-guest, who likewise had not yet fallen asleep.

"Hey," she whispered, "you're still up, right?"

"Barely," the girl yawned quietly. "What do you need?"

"Did your father say anything else? _Besides_ that he needs to speak to me?"

The young woman thought for a moment. "He told me that he needed to speak to Beatrice. He told me that you _were_ a bluebird, but that you were human now. He told me you were the only person still in this world who he could speak to. He told me you were there when the Beast was extinguished." She paused. "That's all he told me."

"Huh." Beatrice rolled on her back and stared at the ceiling.

"You should sleep. We have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow," the young woman mumbled, her speech heavy with drowsiness.

"Yeah. Okay."

Beatrice's thoughts returned to the Beast, that terrible, antlered specter of death. It was dead now, certainly, but even the thought of that moment in the clearing made her blood run cold, just as it had three and a half years ago. She remembered the terror of seeing Greg bound up in the Edelwood branches, the youthful spark finally gone from his eyes. She remembered the look on Wirt's face as he ripped his brother free—terror, panic, relief. It was easy to press these thoughts back into her mind, to keep them silent beneath her facade of harsh wit and indifference.

She tried to think of happier memories. She thought of Wirt.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: This one's really long. I'm sorry. I'm not very happy with how this one's turned out; there's a conversation about halfway through this story that just ****_drags_****, but it's important to the overall narrative, so I'm reluctant to cut more out than I already have. I do have a basic outline of where this story is going, and there's a few more chapters to go before we really get into the fluff.**

* * *

Chapter 2

_Once I circled with my arms_  
_orchards, groves &amp; vineyards_  
_I was rich with pure lust_  
_for all clods, shoots &amp; sprouts_  
_Now I am only a grain of dust I have been to a strange land_  
_&amp; met the dark man_

"Clock of Clay," Robert Hazel

The sun shone bright overhead as the two girls rode through the wood, but the day was still bitterly cold. The Woodsman's daughter rode in the saddle—she was an expert rider, or so presumed Beatrice, who was uncomfortably seated behind the saddle on a flimsy padded cloth, holding on as best she could. Here, her height did her no favors; her long legs draped over the sides of the poor beast, and she felt more like an inconvenience than anything. The biting wind rushed past them as they galloped down the mud-washed, root-strewn pathways that wound incoherently throughout the deep wood.

The ride was mostly silent. Beatrice had slept poorly, so even despite the discomfort of travel, she was still nodding off in the back. The Woodsman's daughter searched for some topic that might lighten the quiet tension.

"Beatrice, do you read much?"

"What?"

"Well, I figured you spend most of your time inside, so... what is it you do all day?"

Beatrice did not know how to respond. What _did_ she do all day?

"I dunno... _I dunno_. Stuff, I guess. What does it matter to you?" She tried to disguise her defensiveness, but it shone through in her tone.

"I'm just curious, that's all. Pardon my prying." Beatrice made a face, but the young woman could not see it. "I mean, I spend a lot of my free time reading. It's a good way to pass the time when the outdoors are so uninviting, I suppose."

Beatrice considered that they still had a whole day's journey until they reached the inn, so she might as well humor her companion. "Sure, I guess so. I haven't really read much of anything, recently." She searched further. "Umm, so, have _you_ read anything good lately?"

The young woman thought for a moment. "I found an old tome of poetry. An anthology, I presume. Most of the poems are untitled and unattributed." She reflected for a moment, then continued: "I think it's quite fascinating, you know, poetry. You can delve into the words, try to piece together the puzzle that's been left for you, or you can simply appreciate the rhythm and the rhyme." She looked back at Beatrice, who was completely disinterested. "I take it you don't read much poetry?"

_Poetry? What—who on earth would read obscure poetry for fun?_ Then Beatrice remembered.

"Well, I never went to school, so no. Everything I learned, my parents taught me, or I figured out for myself. So no poems." She thought for a second, then added, "I like straightforwardness."

"Poetry need not be evasive. Your imagination—your ability to interpret what is both explicit and implicit—that's what makes something either clear or unclear."

Beatrice regretted leaving her house immensely. "What?" she groaned. It was time for this to be over. "Listen, I'm really sorry, I'm sure this is something you care strongly about and yadda yadda yadda but _you have got to be kidding me right now_. It's like, what, nine in the morning? It's freezing cold, I'm falling asleep, I'm _sitting on the back of a horse that is clearly meant to carry only one full-size human_, and I cannot do this right now. I cannot have some kind of deep, meaningful, symbolic conversation under these circumstances. I'm sorry." She closed her eyes and attempted to fall asleep in the most assertive, aggressive manner possible.

The young woman's politeness, however, was unflagging. "I do not know how easy it will be to sleep back there, but suit yourself."

For the moment, the conversation had ceased. Beatrice smiled to herself. Perhaps, she thought, her riding partner would assume her to be asleep and keep quiet out of respect. Then:

"_In green fields of clover,_

_long shadows of day draw close._

_'Round the maples and the holly bush,_

_The world is turning over."_

Beatrice screamed internally. How many people in this universe—in _any_ universe, for that matter—_recite poetry to themselves_?

"_Gently storms and howls the wind, _

_as nightfall ere pervades._

_O'er the hollow'd stumps, and ash, and dust,_

_May the depth of dark descend."_

They reached the inn shortly before sundown. They did not linger long among the drunken patrons, the tavern-folk who came from far and wide to this desolate place for food and drink. The stone and timber frame of the building groaned heavily under the wind and the cold. As they made their way up to their rented room, exhaustion fell quickly upon both Beatrice and the Woodsman's daughter, and the discomfort of their paltry lodgings did little to dissuade them from sleep.

"_O misery, call down the crows,_

_that in concert may travail,_

_'cross bridges burnt and pathways rot_

_to the North, into the snows."_

They awoke the next morning and set out nearly immediately. Beatrice marveled at the discipline of her traveling companion, but recognized that they were two birds of dissimilar feathers, so to speak. Where the Woodsman's daughter was polite and courteous, perhaps to a fault, Beatrice was blunt and callous; where Beatrice found comfort in clarity, her attendant found joy in metaphor. While the young woman settled the bill with the tavern's owner, Beatrice stretched her legs out; the soreness of the prior day had just begun to set in.

"_One hand draws multifold digits,_

_each tree yet bears its roots._

_So dims the globe, the plane unfold,_

_by the hours and by the minutes."_

The road was no kinder to them that day than it had been the previous, but Beatrice had either grown accustomed to the bumps and jolts, or she was simply going numb. Conversation was sparse, but generally more pleasant than before—both women had learned to stick to broad, inoffensive topics, and Beatrice admitted to herself that she had warmed up—somewhat—to the inexhaustible courtesy offered by the Woodsman's daughter. As the sun dipped lower toward the horizon, the horse and its rider slowed their pace.

"Beatrice, we're nearly here! I recognize these woods." It sounded almost like genuine excitement—a surprise, coming from one so usually reserved.

"Good. I'm anxious to get this over with."

They soon came upon a clearing, and within it stood a quiet, unassuming house. The wooden construction—handmade, likely—was solid, if a bit plain, but Beatrice was merely relieved to finally be through with the ride. The two young women made their way to the front of the cottage.

"_Let wickedness and blackened gloom_

_yet stall upon the march._

_May courage fierce and wisdom sharp_

_turn the holly bush in bloom."_

* * *

The heavy door creaked as the Woodsman's daughter opened it. The inside of the house was somewhat barren, but warm; the fire had clearly been tended faithfully, and the smoky scent of fresh cedar filled the room. The house had only spartan furnishings, but each chair and table, utilitarian though they were, bore the distinctive marks of handmade craftsmanship. A rocking chair, covered in quilts and down, faced the hearth; beside it were a few other, smaller chairs. The rest of the room was fairly dark, though not threateningly so.

"Father?" The young woman made her way to light a few of the lanterns scattered around the room. Beatrice remained by the door, suddenly unsure of how to act in polite company.

"Ah, my child," the old man's voice creaked, "you have returned. The house has been empty without you." The Woodsman, nearly buried under the layers of fabric on the rocking chair, leaned forward, and he and his daughter briefly embraced.

"Look, father! I've found the girl you asked for. Beatrice, the... well, I suppose she's no longer a bluebird. Look for yourself!" She gestured at the entryway, where Beatrice stood, still unsure of what exactly to do. The Woodsman turned his head toward her.

"Come closer, child. It pains me to speak, and I cannot see far in this dim light."

Beatrice hung her coat and scarf on a rack by the door, then stepped forward. The Woodsman's daughter dutifully showed Beatrice to a simple wooden chair, situated to the side of the fireplace, then quietly slipped out. The old man's wheezing breath punctuated the emptiness of the room. Beatrice considered speaking up, but the right words seemed to elude her. Finally, the Woodsman began:

"This world is dying, Beatrice. Tell me-" Here, the old man coughed, then continued. "Tell me that you cannot feel it?"

Beatrice stared at the pitiful mass of blankets and folded, dry skin in front of her, completely dumbfounded. "What."

"The wood is dying, child. I can feel it in my bones." For a moment, the old man seemed lost in reflection. "No, perhaps you are too young. But you came to this place through the forest, that much is certain. Could you not feel Nature itself suffering that horrible, invisible blight?" The Woodsman spoke slowly, deliberately, and with a cadence that carried a certain weight as well as a kind of suspense.

Beatrice tried to follow. "Um. I mean, it's cold, yeah, I guess?" Her eyes narrowed. "You needed me to come all the way here so you could talk about the weather?"

"Patience, child," cautioned the Woodsman. Unfortunately, Beatrice did not have a lot of that. "Let me get a look at you." The old man moved around under his blankets, eventually leaning forward to see his guest.

She was beautiful—pale skin, fierce and piercing eyes, framed by a mess of dull barn-red hair, some of which tumbled down in locks around her and some of which was held up in a sloppy bun. She was not slovenly, though—far from it, she recognized that beauty follows comfort, and her natural earthiness gave her a kind of authentic radiance rather than a practiced, ladylike artifice. She was tall, though quite lean, and in many ways looked younger than the adult that she had become. Perhaps her most striking feature, apart from not being a bluebird, was her countless freckles, concentrated on her face but extending down her neck, along her arms; they lent a warmth of character to her features when she smiled and when she laughed. She was, however, doing none of those things at that moment.

"Look, your daughter told me you needed to speak to me—like, me, specifically. I've been on a horse for longer than I'd ever like to be and I can't feel any single part of my thighs whatsoever. Can we hurry it up, please?"

The old man sighed. "Very well." He shrunk back down into his fabrics and began:

"You understand that I was once in a kind of service to the Beast, yes?" Beatrice nodded.

"I swore no fealty to him, you understand—he simply tracked me, followed me, whispered in my ear and set me on paths that I could neither understand nor avoid." How much of this, Beatrice wondered, did his daughter know?

"The Beast told me many things over those long, black years. Falsehoods, half-truths, distortions... but secrets as well. The power he possessed was both mythic and real; so, too, was his knowledge."

"The foul creature often spoke of his necessity, of the rectitude of his way. If he had a conscience, I think he would have seen his role, as it were, to be a type of service to the natural order of things. Lost souls would come from over the garden wall, and he would shepherd them, manipulate them, turn them into-" The old man took a deep breath and did not wish to continue the thought. Beatrice understood.

"I only know that now. But he did tell me that _the world would perish in his absence_." He lent a deliberate emphasis to each word. "At the time, I thought it just another of his tricks. But now..."

Beatrice began to connect the dots. "Wait a sec," she began, "so you're really just saying that you think the world's ending because you killed the Beast? But that doesn't make any sense! It's a good thing that it's gone. Now, idiots who get lost won't turn into creepy trees, and the world's a better place. Besides, it's been, what, like, three years or something? You'd think the world would have ended by now if he was really so essential to it."

"Ah!" The Woodsman spoke as if he had seen the glimmer of full understanding in Beatrice's ostensible disagreement. "That's just it, child. It is ending, but worlds do not snuff out in an instant like candles—no, these are the embers, the could, smoldering embers..." Beatrice began to see where the Woodsman's daughter's affinity for metaphor and verbal evasion came from.

"You see," the old man continued, "the world has gone cold. It has been this way ever since the Beast was extinguished and it will not improve. I know these woods. I know when they are dead. I know when they are cursed."

"Wait, wait, wait." Beatrice remained something of a skeptic, even when confronted with fairly convincing evidence. "Okay, so you think there's some kind of curse on these woods, and that's why the seasons have been all wonked out. I can kinda get that—I know a thing or two about dumb curses. But what does that have to do with the Beast? I mean, how can killing some kind of creepy forest spirit land a curse on a whole place? What did we do to deserve that?" Though, consciously, she lacked awareness of the fact, she used her flippancy and sarcasm to avoid acknowledging just how much the events of three years prior had truly affected her.

"We upset the balance, Beatrice." The dusty croaking of the old man's voice had gone; now, he spoke with urgency and clarity. "It falls on us to fix things now. And I cannot." He peered at her intently from his position in the now-immobile rocking chair. Beatrice began to understand that this chair was likely the Woodsman's deathbed, of sorts. Perhaps a life of servitude had taken its untimely toll on the old man; perhaps he was simply in the late evening of his natural life.

"Fix things...?"

"Listen: the Beast never spoke of powers greater than him. That was his ploy, you understand—to convince you that nothing surpassed him, that he was the true power in this world. But I know that only one name seemed to shake that horrible creature: The Oracle."

Beatrice did not know whether she was imagining things, but it seemed as if the fire grew brighter at the name's mention. "The Oracle?" She wasn't even sure what an oracle was.

"Yes, the Oracle of the North. Witches and the like treat him as a covenant between the spirit realm and this one, a medium in the flesh, or so the rumors go. His location is known only to them, and they would not give up such information freely."

"So he's just some guy who talks to spirits?" Beatrice was flatly unimpressed, but was beginning to believe some of the things the Woodsman was saying.

"I know little about the Oracle, save for old wives' tales and hearsay. But I know that the Beast believed in him, though he would never admit to it, and that the Beast recognized his power. You could tell it, just the way that infernal voice wavered ever so slightly at its mere whisper. A foul liar."

Logs shifted in the fireplace. Wind whipped around the outside of the house, and the muffled sounds of the dry boughs scraping against each other provided the only other ambient noise in the room. The old man's daughter had vanished into some other room; perhaps she was asleep now. The conversation had lulled.

Beatrice reflected for a spell. The premise seemed less outlandish than it had at its onset. It was true: the woods were certainly dying, and the seasons had become unending since that fateful day. But she remained unconvinced: who in their right mind would trust a dying old man—a man who purposefully hid from the truth, it seemed, and spoke only at a distance to it—especially when that man's request involved a journey of indefinite time and nebulous but almost certain peril? A journey based on rumor and hearsay, imparted to her by a man who she barely knew but with whom she shared a past that she would rather remain undisturbed within the vaults of her memory. She prided herself on her reason and rationality, and this endeavor seemed to satisfy neither of those impulses.

Then she considered the alternative. She would leave this house, politely (or impolitely, as the case may be) decline to take the Woodsman up on his charge, then return home. And then what? Would she stare out her window, watching the world turn gray, dark, and empty? Would she become the Woodsman, sitting idly by as the life and color drained from the soil and the sky? How would she live with herself if she simply allowed herself to waste away, to wallow in malaise and indefinite self-pity until she, too, turned gray and lifeless—even if the Woodsman _was_ misled, and the world bloomed once more? She had always favored action over inaction, she felt, and suffering in her own mind seemed to run contrary to her wishes.

She weighed her options.

"So you want me to go find the Oracle. Fair enough, you want what you want. But what makes you think I'd even _want_ to do it? You could make your daughter go, or... or the tavern down the way is full of journeymen and adventurer types-"

"You have an obligation!" The Woodsman barked, exasperated at the notion that the young girl still did not understand him.

"I don't feel obligated," she replied, firmly and obstinately. Beatrice was quick to chastise others for their stubbornness, but she herself was oftentimes the worst offender. The old man scowled, seeing that he would get nowhere with this line of argument. "You still haven't told me why _I_ have to be the one, you know," Beatrice offered.

The old man sighed. "Because you, you and your... friends. You are the only heroes I have ever known, in the long years I wandered the wood. You sacrificed for each other, and you came out the strongest in the end because you believed in not only your righteousness but in the moral strength of each other. But now _they_ are gone, and only you remain." It was almost if he begrudged the words.

_They are gone_. The words seemed to linger in Beatrice's ears.

"You are a hero, Beatrice."

Night had fallen outside. The wind howled. Beatrice had always favored action over inaction.

"Alright." She resolved to find the Oracle.

The conversation transitioned into logistics and planning; it was night now, so Beatrice would leave the following morning. The Woodsman's old wandering pack was around somewhere, he claimed, and within it were the necessities of travel, including a compass and an ax. Beatrice decided that it would be best to leave as soon as possible, though she wasn't quite sure where to go—neither she nor the Woodsman knew where the Oracle was, save for "the North." But there were witches all over the woods, and surely one of them could be persuaded to give directions. Beatrice thought about the coins stitched into the hem of her dress, but silently recoiled at the thought of making another deal with one of them. Still, though, something as powerful as the Oracle was supposed to be couldn't be _too_ difficult to find.

Both Beatrice and the Woodsman had a fairly functional knowledge of the pathways around the woods itself, but neither of them knew well what lay beyond the trees. The woods turned into rocky foothills as one walked due north, so they assumed that beyond that lay mountains, and that mountains would likely be difficult to miss. Beatrice could not ride horseback, so she would walk. Her oversized woolen coat would likely provide ample protection against the weather, but the Woodsman lent her his old hiking boots, which, though sized for a man, seemed to fit Beatrice's feet quite well.

They reviewed the task once more. The plan was straightforward: Beatrice was to find the Oracle, get to the Oracle, and receive guidance. If anyone could fix the ills of the land, it was bound to be this mythical man.

* * *

The Woodsman's daughter stood in the open doorway to the guest room in the house—really, just a closet with enough down and bedding to serve as a reasonable bed for Beatrice. She could not accompany Beatrice, she had said—she had to stay here and take care of her ailing father. But she would be willing to make one last, short trip, she had said. Both women recognized the importance of family.

Beatrice handed her a small, folded piece of paper. She had slaved over the thing, concerned first and foremost with making sure she came across as confident and not-at-all scared out of her mind. It read:

_Dear Mom &amp; Dad,_

_I hate to do this to you, but I have to do a favor for an old friend of mine. He's very sick and cannot make a very important journey, so he needs me to do it for him. I promise I'll be safe and sound and back home to you as soon as I can. I promise I'm not running away again, and I promise I'll avoid throwing rocks at birds this time. Try not to worry about me—I'm sure I can take care of myself. I love you all and will see you soon._

_Your daughter,_

_Beatrice_

_p.s. Tell everybody that if they even think of messing with my stuff, I'll get us all cursed by a pile of manure or something this time._

That would have to suffice, she figured. "Give this to my mother, if you could."

The Woodsman's daughter smiled and said she would do so. She bid Beatrice a good night and was turning to leave when Beatrice spoke up once more.

"Hey, I had a question, and it's gonna bug me forever if I don't ask it."

The young woman stopped, taken aback by her suddenly-forthcoming guest.

"Yes?"

"That poem you were reciting earlier. On the ride here. Who wrote that?"

The Woodsman's daughter blushed. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I thought you had fallen asleep—I didn't mean to disturb you!"

Beatrice looked flatly at her, but without the previous iciness or disdain. "It's fine. But I'm curious, now—what can you tell me about it?"

The young woman shrugged. "I dunno. It's just from some old book. Like I said, it didn't have an author."

"Huh. Okay. I guess that's sufficiently unsatisfying. Thanks." Beatrice spoke in short, ponderous spurts. Her door gently slid shut and she curled up amongst her adequate, albeit meager, bedding. In a way, it reminded her of being a bluebird.

She didn't feel like much of a hero. Wirt was the hero. Greg, even. Not her. She had been more of a burden than anything, she thought. Most of her time had been spent leading the boys to a crazy old witch, who she had trusted implicitly. How was she supposed to be the hero now, when the only heroes _she_ had ever known had crossed a lake and climbed a wall and—poof! Vanished. That was what Wirt had said they were going to do, at least.

_God, Wirt, why'd you have to go back?_ It had made so much sense at the time. Both of them had just wanted to get back to their homes. Wirt had a responsibility to Greg and the frog; she had had a responsibility to her family. And now everybody lived happily ever after. But this wasn't how it was supposed to go. She wasn't happy. She felt empty. She lived on a homestead in the middle of nowhere and everything she had seen, everything she had heard, everything she had done when she was with the boys—everything had faded away, dulled by a relentless nostalgia for the only real friends she had ever had. And now that she was faced with adventure once more, she found herself wishing more than ever that they had stayed, that things might have been different.

But they had gone. And now Beatrice had to do it all alone.

_Or did she?_

The room was bathed in darkness. Her mind fell once again upon that one spark, the tiny little fantasy of comfort that told her that her friends were not truly gone forever, that she could find them and bring them back. Somehow. If anyone could do that, she could. She was the only hero left in this world, after all.

It was recognized among everyone who lived in her remote area of the wood that both the lake and the wall itself were magical. Most steered clear of the area, claiming that they heard the cries of children at night and in deep fog. They assumed that evil spirits were at work. Beatrice knew now that that belief was half-true. But if all that stood between her and her companions was just a wall...

Yes, she was a hero, she decided. But a hero doesn't have to work alone.

As she drifted off to sleep, she began to plan a detour.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: My apologies for the wait in between chapters—I'm still not sure what kind of schedule I'll be writing/releasing this stuff on, but ideally I won't be taking so long in the future. This chapter was originally going to be a lot shorter and more straightforward, but I came up with some new material and thought it might be worth incorporating. Now it's long as hell.**

**This chapter marks the first appearance of an OC in this story. I've tried to limit my use of original characters very deliberately: I don't want to turn this story into a completely novel piece of writing, and I think it'll be more meaningful to you guys if I work from within an established repertoire of characters, rather than invent new ones and expect you to identify with them in the same way. On the other hand, it's pretty hard to tell a decent story if the only people I have to work with are drawn from a fairly limited pool of mostly-minor characters in a 10-episode cartoon miniseries. **

**In this chapter, you'll meet Sister Celeste. The Oracle will feature more heavily in future chapters. I've tried to keep both of these OCs similar in tone and in essence to characters in the original show, but I've also tried to add some kind of original spin on them.**

**Lastly, I appreciate all of your comments, and I hope that you continue to provide me with feedback! I'm always looking for ways to make my storytelling more coherent, so I'd be grateful for any and all criticism.**

* * *

Chapter 3

"_Every old place I go_

_Every old place I go_

_I can tell the wind is risin'_

_The leaves tremblin' on the tree_

_Tremblin' on the tree"_

"Hellhound on my Trail," Robert Johnson

The road was long beneath Beatrice's feet. The path was straightforward enough—she knew many of the major routes through the wood by heart, and the Woodsman's daughter had pointed her in the direction she needed to go before she had set off that morning—but the strain of carrying the pack, combined with the weight of her heavy coat and boots, was wearing on her. Sometimes she really missed her wings.

The forest was scary to some, but not to her. She had grown up in here, played in the twisting branches and thick underbrush, climbed, fallen, enjoyed as best she could the splendors of a frontier childhood well-removed from urban life. Though she had rarely ventured as far as the Woodsman's cottage—in fact, she didn't even realize it was there until the other day—she had developed a kind of mental map of the immediate area around the homestead. As she grew older, the forest became a place for quiet, peaceful meditation as well as a place of respite when her adolescent temper would flare and she would storm out of her house, incensed by some trivial slight she perceived her family had effected against her.

Her boots dragged along the rough ground, and her breath was suspended in frosty air in front of her.

The familiarity of the forest was upset, she recognized, by the decay therein. The Woodsman was right—the land itself was dying; you could feel it. The beautiful swaths of emerald green, the abundant flowers that lined the road, the manifold songs of birds, insects, frogs... these things had vanished, and in the vacuum of their absence remained only rough shades of gray, tinged with the mud-washed, rusty hues of winter's elongated end and the solemn silence of hibernation. If she had been unconvinced when she spoke to the old man, her firsthand experience had now provided evidence enough.

She was cutting a path dead west. Her object was a small, murky lake, the shores of which were bounded by sharp rocks and ragged thorns. There, in that remote corner of the woods, where the trees and underbrush grew too thick to pass through in any place other than the road, was the mythical garden wall. The wall itself was on the opposite shores of the lake, or so the stories claimed, but everywhere from the banks onward was drenched in a permanent, thick fog. For all she knew, the wall wasn't even a real, concrete thing. This impermeable fog was perhaps why the area had acquired its common association with dark magic—that, and the ethereal cries of lost children that travelers heard echoing out. Beatrice had never visited the place and, until this moment, had never much desired to.

The wind shook the dead branches above her. Twigs snapped beneath her. The roads were barren, and she encountered no one along the winding path.

The monotony of the lonely journey accorded Beatrice some reflection. How, exactly, did she plan to get over the wall? Wirt just suddenly seemed to _know_ how to get home, though she was certainly not the one to tell him. Would she have to pay some kind of toll? Was it just some sort of self-evident magic? Or would nothing happen at all, and she was simply entertaining this flight of fancy because she'd been cooped up in her house for so long, crafting elaborate fantasies of the adventure she'd missed in the three years since? She worried that she was being driven by impulse rather than reason, and that disagreed with her fundamentally.

Yet, she prevailed. Night had begun to fall, and the wind was picking up. Beatrice drew her coat tighter around her slim figure and trudged onward. A light fog began to set in.

She smelled the lake before she saw it. It was really more of a swamp than the crystal-clear pond she had imagined, and the damp, dank scent lingered heavy in the air. The mist around her was thickening as she continued toward its source, and the sun had finally dipped below the tree line. Here she was. She did not know what to expect.

The dirt road turned to dust-covered rocks interlaced with roots, sloping downward to the shores of the lake. Her visibility was limited first by the fog and second by the twilight, but she could make out a thin canoe at the water's edge. A single oar laid haphazardly by its wayside. The presentation made its utility obvious: one was clearly supposed to take this canoe.

"Hello?" Beatrice ventured, cautiously. She received no response.

She walked up to the canoe and swung her heavy pack around, placing it in the bow. The wood creaked with the stress of the added weight, but the ship seemed sturdy enough. The air was thick around Beatrice as she launched the canoe off the shore and into the murky, fog-soaked water of the lake. She grabbed the oar and jumped into the canoe, rocking it precariously, but soon she steadied the boat and continued, paddling slowly but intently into the mist. Everything was still around her, and the utter silence of the fog was punctuated only by the splashing of the oar in the water.

It was nearly dark when the canoe reached land. At first, Beatrice was worried that she had simply circled back around, lost in the dense and nearly unnavigable fog. But when she set foot on the ground, she found it was wet and grassy—wholly unlike the rocky shores on the other side, with its twisting roots and bed of gnarled thorns. Beatrice carefully stepped off the canoe and slid her pack back onto her shoulders. Onward.

She wondered to herself how she might ever get back. She relegated those thoughts to the back of her mind and kept walking.

* * *

Soon she came upon a clearing that rose in a slight upward slope. It felt as if she were walking upon clumps of moss and grass—unusual that they were not dead or petrified like much of the plant life she had already encountered. A few rocks, here or there, dotted the landscape, but the fog was ceaseless and now, in the rapidly-falling darkness of the early night, Beatrice could see very little.

A thought occurred to her, and she immediately set down her pack and searched through it for her fire-starting flint. Her father had taught her how to make a makeshift torch out of a thick, stubby branch, the tip wrapped in kindling, but she needed the proper ingredients. She felt around for the flint striker and, finding it in the bottom of the pack, scanned around in the immediate vicinity for a dry branch and some pliable twigs. Despite the relative darkness, she was successful, and within a minute or so she had assembled everything she needed for a torch.

She was about to strike the flint when she heard it. Something. Singing, perhaps, or soft chanting. It was eerie. She hovered the flint over her meager, unlit torch, remaining completely still. Her eyes scanned the darkness, and adrenaline and fear in equal measure coursed through her veins.

As her eyes adjusted to the night, she could make out a dim glow in the distance—the same place the noises were coming from. Yes, at this point she was sure: it was the dim droll of a woman's speech, though whatever she was saying was too quiet to be quite coherent. It seemed as if she repeated herself, whatever she was saying, and her cadence was evocative more of a lecture or a sermon than of a conversation. Beatrice set the flint down and pulled out the knife she had strapped to her leg (at the insistence, no less, of the Woodsman).

Slowly she moved toward the light, taking care to avoid snapping fallen branches or disturbing dead leaves. The speech was becoming no more distinct, though it grew in volume as Beatrice neared the source. She peered through the brush, but could make out very little—just the dull, yellow glow of another light.

She took another step forward and caught herself on a small rock. She tumbled forward helplessly, crashing through the foliage. The sounds of speech ceased immediately, and Beatrice's distress echoed theatrically through the empty night. She felt her blood run cold, and her grip on her likely-insufficient weapon tightened to a rigid clench. By the time Beatrice was lying flat on the ground, trying desperately to regain her footing, she froze up. It became apparent that a shadowy figure was looming over her.

"You lost, child?" The voice belonged to an old woman, and her breath rattled with age. Beatrice could barely speak; her lungs felt as if they were collapsing.

"N-no—I'm looking for the wall." If she was to die right here, she figured, she might as well tell the truth.

"Ah." The hag's voice seemed neither pleased nor displeased. In one hand, Beatrice maintained her grip on the knife in her pocket. "Then come, follow me."

Out of the darkness, a well-aged, pale hand draped in thin, black fabrics held itself in front of Beatrice—close enough that she could see no more than that. The old woman was offering to help her up. She considered that refusing her would be, at this juncture, unwise.

"It is dangerous to walk these woods at night." Her voice was biting, like the winter wind that carries down from the mountains, but outright malice did not seem to reside within it. With the woman's help, Beatrice rose to her feet and followed.

Approaching the dim light, the two soon came upon another, somewhat larger clearing: evidently, this was where the old woman had set up camp. The most apparent feature was a large, covered wagon without wheels, parked at an angle and with a small, recently-tended fire in front of the entrance. In the light, Beatrice could now tell that the grass itself was green and living, though she had to wonder what magic was at work to defy the seasons and make it so. Visible from the light of the fire were several curious tall stones, dotted around the clearing. An upturned, empty box of soap sat near the fire.

In the light, Beatrice was able to get a clearer look at her new companion. She was, as her voice had suggested, an old woman; she walked with a distinct limp, and her back was held at a permanent slump, as if the weight of her head were too heavy for her spine. She was draped in innumerable black cloths which fell loose but secure around her body. Her face was her only discernible feature: wrinkled skin, discolored bags beneath her drooping eyes, a thick, beaked nose, and long ears weighted down by a vast array of earrings. Her hair was thin, stringy, and black as midnight. She had the appearance of a hermit, or a witch. The two women examined the other in silence. Then:

"I," the old woman began, "am Sister Celeste, the shepherd of my flock." She introduced herself with a peculiar sense of triumph, as if Beatrice should be awed to find herself within her presence.

"Beatrice." She was still tremendously uneasy, and while she had slipped the knife back within her coat pocket, she retained her grip on it nonetheless.

"You may sit." Sister Celeste had evidently perfected the conversational art of being both cold and inviting at the same time. She limped up into the wagon and behind the curtains which were drawn around its entrance. Beatrice sat on the soapbox and looked at the tall rocks, the only geographical features visible in the warm light of the fire. At the very least, she figured, Beatrice would not be cold when this witch savagely dismembered her, limb by limb, and ate her for dinner.

From within the wagon, Beatrice could hear the rustling of papers, curious metallic clinking noises, and what sounded like marbles hitting together. Sister Celeste was silent, but she was clearly searching for something. Within a few moments, a dim glow began to emanate from the curtains.

The old woman's crooked face poked out from within the wagon, illuminated now by faint candlelight. "Come, come inside," she beckoned. Beatrice obliged, albeit warily.

Stepping inside the wagon, it became apparent that there were a variety of magics at work. The claustrophobic space was bounded by the rickety wooden planks of the wagon, but every inch of livable space, save for the small area in which Beatrice and Sister Celeste now sat, was covered in a variety of small trinkets, presumably of some power. Opaque flasks, corked and wrapped in thin cloths lined the haphazard shelves, and strange smells and perfumes wafted out from the floorboards. Next to the old woman was a variety of glass orbs—some of them were fully translucent, but others seemed like the inside was clouded with some kind of deep azure miasma, almost as if a small fragment of the night sky had been plucked from the heavens and stored in a tiny sphere. The cloudier ones emitted a faint glow. Small candles provided the rest of the light—as well as the warmth—of the space.

"You may release your grip on that weapon, child. If I wanted you dead, I would have already made it so." It was not a very polite way to break the silence, but Beatrice did as she was told. It was apparent to her now that whatever resolution she achieved here, it would be through speech rather than violence.

"So," Sister Celeste crooned, her beady eyes peering directly into—and, perhaps, past—Beatrice, "You have come to climb the wall?"

Beatrice nodded. She wasn't entirely sure what she was going to do once she got there, but climbing sounded about right.

"Why?" The question seemed loaded, and the old hag's voice carried a distinctly venomous undertone.

Beatrice swallowed. "Because I need to find someone and bring him back," she spat out quite plainly. It sounded even more harebrained now that she was being prompted on her brilliant plan by a profoundly unsettling witch.

"Ah..." Sister Celeste's eyes lit up, and her whole expression morphed from distrust to an almost-grandmotherly joviality. "Ah! Of course! You're in _love_! Yes, only love would steer someone to such strange and unfamiliar roads." It was almost as if she was teasing her.

Beatrice's cheeks flushed bright red, and she found herself uncharacteristically stumbling over her words. "No! No! _No_! You've—you've got it all wrong! I'm _not_ in love, not _in love_ with _anyone_! I'm, um, I need to get over to the other side because there's something I need from, um, someone who's already over there, and I need to get it, and come back, with him, but not for any romantic reason or _whatever_, and never _answer questions about it_ again. So no! Definitely not in love." Her embarrassment only grew as she tried poorly to dissuade the old woman. _Love has nothing to do with this_, she thought.

Sister Celeste smiled, revealing her gnarled, yellowed teeth. "Whatever you say, dear." She was laughing to herself, just silently. Beatrice fidgeted uncomfortably.

"So, um, can you help me? I mean, you seem to know what's going on and stuff, so maybe you could lend a hand to poor old me?" Anything to get off the previous subject.

The old woman once again adopted the piercing gaze that had greeted Beatrice, and her eyes seemed to look through her. Sister Celeste paused for a spell. "What do you know of the wall, hm?" The wagon seemed to draw colder.

"Um, nothing, really. It's some kind of portal from here to... somewhere else?"

"Few people pass this way, young Beatrice. Almost always, they are coming from _there_ to _here_; it draws them, this place, you see, like moths to a flame in the dark of the night. Always from the _other side_, onto _this side_, and never from _this side_ onto the _other_. Because once you come onto this side, well... let's just say there are fates worse than finding oneself lost in the woods." Beatrice anxiously looked behind her at the curtains and the black of the night behind them. "And here I am, Sister Celeste, to see over these passages and passageways, and to do what I can."

"I take it you're some sort of gatekeeper, then?"

"_Gatekeeper_?" The old woman raised her voice for the first time; she spoke now at a thunderous volume. "_A gatekeeper_? Do you not recognize me, child? _I am Sister Celeste_! The Saint of the Wall, the Minister of Souls, the Virgil of the Unknown. I spread the word, I spread the _light_, and I keep the fire lit! My voice is the heavens, and my congregation is eternal. _I am no mere gatekeeper_, child." Beatrice had backed up against the curtains, and felt her hand reaching for her pocket once more. The fire in Sister Celeste's eyes seemed to dim, albeit minimally.

"I spread my word to all those who would listen, young Beatrice. I am the Shepherd, and my flock is many." She seemed to be calming down, Beatrice figured, which was good.

"Um, so you're a preacher or something?"

"Do you have cork in your ears?" The old woman snarled. "I am a minister, a circuit rider, and this bluff is my circuit. I offer salvation, damnation, and all services in between, for a price. But my word is free of charge." The way she spoke, each word wound into the next, slithering off her tongue and through her teeth. Beatrice was unsettled, but no longer feared in an immediate sense for her life.

"So there are people who live around here? I mean, your ministry seems pretty empty right now." Beatrice was asking an innocent question, perhaps born out of some kind of impulse toward politeness, but Sister Celeste looked dumbfounded. There was a brief, awkward silence in the wagon. Then, something seemed to click within the old woman.

"Ah! Now I see—and I see that you cannot."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Oh, pay me no mind—just the ramblings of an old servant of the heavens." Something seemed off about the way Sister Celeste was talking. Beatrice frowned, though she tried to disguise it.

"Um," Beatrice ventured, "we were talking about the wall?"

"Ah yes, the wall. I sit here in my hermitage, the children come over, they leave, and I pay them little mind except to notice the direction of their passage." Then her voice briefly adopted a tender tone. "There is little I can do for them, you know. Once they're here." She spoke at nearly a whisper.

"So there's no way for me to get over?" Beatrice tried to keep the old woman in the present simply for the sake of straightforwardness.

"There are many ways to do many things, here in the Unknown, Beatrice. Even a humble servant of the heavens can indulge in a barter or so, if the cause is suitable. Or the reward." Beatrice looked confused.

"Hold on. I know _for sure_ that two boys and a frog went across, from this side to the other side. It would have been, like, three years ago. Why can't I just do whatever they did?"

The wagon was silent, but the air lacked the piercing tension of an imminent outburst. It was different. Sister Celeste looked, for the first time since Beatrice had met her, as if she had not anticipated this development. It was difficult to read her face. Was she shocked? Afraid?

The old woman seemed to drop her evasiveness, at least superficially. "I do not know," she answered quietly and plainly. "A return journey such as theirs has only happened once while I have been here to see it." For Beatrice, there was a certain amount of comfort in Sister Celeste's honest lack of understanding, though it did not bring her closer to her goal.

Beatrice pushed the issue further. "That's it? You don't know?"

"The wall defies certainty." Beatrice listened intently. "But for you, young Beatrice, I do not believe an excursion over the garden wall would be so easy. We tend to where we belong. Your roots are here, in the Unknown, and your soul is tethered to this plane. Theirs were not. If I had to hazard a guess, that would be why they were able to complete their return."

Beatrice's eyes wandered to the piles of assorted junk and trinkets, each certainly brimming with some esoteric magical power. Here, surrounded by a veritable stockpile of charms and potions, nothing here could help her?

"Yes, I suppose they were not meant to be here in the first place," the old woman gently reflected. "But yes, I saw them as they passed. The older one with the sleeping one draped over his shoulders. Determined, I suppose, and with a kind of juvenile strength of will. Dressed in the strangest apparel I've seen, too. And the frog." Sister Celeste stopped abruptly, and something changed in her tone. "_The frog_."

"Yeah, you wouldn't _believe_ what that frog can do, believe m-" Beatrice tried to help her out, but the zealous fire had returned to the old woman's eyes.

"Beatrice, how badly do you want to go over that wall?" Sister Celeste was oddly insistent, and she spoke quickly, as if a new idea had dawned upon her—or as if a previous idea, theretofore shelved for its outlandishness or dangerousness, had suddenly become appealing.

"I mean, I'm not about to do anything stupid for it." She began to back off. She'd been burned by deals with witches before. _Was Sister Celeste a witch?_ Beatrice couldn't even tell at this point. "But I came all the way here to do it, so... yeah, it's kind of the next point on my itinerary."

"I will provide you safe passage, young Beatrice. But you must do something for me in return."

Beatrice considered the offer. "Okay, go on."

"There is a powerful artifact in the possession of that party. _I want it._ Bring me the frog and I will ensure that you cross over and back without harm. _Trust me_, Beatrice."

"_What_? You just told me you didn't think I could make it over. Now you think it's totally safe just because you want a _singing frog?_ What the heck? He's good, but he's not _that_ good!" Beatrice didn't care if Sister Celeste held all the cards—she had no interest in being misled by self-interested witches.

"We both maintain private agendas, young Beatrice. I never said that you couldn't make it across—I merely said that the wall defies certainty, and that your soul is bathed in the essence of this plane of being." She paused. "But souls are pliable things."

Beatrice's immediate instinct was to leave, but something compelled her to stay. She could not rightfully ascertain what that _something_ was.

"_I can get you across,_ young Beatrice. Isn't that what you want?" Sister Celeste spoke with a dreamy, hypnotic cadence.

"How?" Beatrice could hardly believe she was entertaining the thought, but what choice did she really have? The black of the night seemed just as threatening.

"I tether a part of your soul here, in the physical realm. I loose the bonds that hold you here, so to speak. It's quite a simple spell, really." Sister Celeste's zeal had been supplanted by a kind of calculated madness, as she internally ran through the magical processes she would need to perform to make this work. Her eyes scanned her stock of enchanted objects. Yes, she had what she needed.

"Woah, woah, woah. Are you even _trying_ to make this sound like something other than a trap? You want to cast a spell that 'looses the bonds of my soul'—what, _really_?" Beatrice argued with the old woman, but the more she thought about it, the more she was attracted to this glimmer of hope, perilous though it was, when she considered that the alternative was to run into the dark night and probably freeze to death.

"I understand you not wanting to believe me, child. But consider this: why would I want you to come to harm when I need you to bring me the object I so desire?" She made a valid point.

Beatrice took a deep breath. She had come this far, she might as well see it through. "Okay, fair. But I walk out of here unharmed and with my soul perfectly intact, or there's no deal. I'll see to it that that stupid frog never sees this side of the wall ever again."

"Of course, my dear." The old woman smiled with as much kindness as she could muster.

"And anybody I come back with is safe, too?" Beatrice was trying to cover all her bases—witches and other magical entities were loath to break contracts, or so the stories went, but specificity on the terms was what mattered.

"I wouldn't dare."

The cold wind howled around the wagon. Beatrice felt profoundly alone. "Alright," she offered at last, "I'll do it."

Sister Celeste immediately turned and began to root through a pile of metallic junk. Beatrice sat perfectly still, feeling as if she had made a tremendous mistake. The interior of the wagon felt cold. The old woman produced a small, gold ring. "Slip this on." Beatrice did not respond, so Sister Celeste slid it on for her. As she pulled her hand away, she kept her middle and index fingers on Beatrice's palm.

The old woman opened her mouth. The candles went out. Beatrice felt something happen around her, and then within her, as if her senses were dulled only slightly, but moreover as if something nearly-imperceptible had changed within her countenance. Sister Celeste said nothing, but the movement of her dry lips sliding against each other was slightly audible in the complete silence of the rest of the compartment. Then, in the blackness of the wagon, one more of the glass orbs lit up with glowing swirls of deep blue. After a brief moment, the candles returned in concert to their previous levels, and the temperature within seemed to normalize.

"There," the old woman declared, "it's done. Now, keep that ring on at all times, and I'll keep watch over that fraction of your soul until you return." With one hand, the old woman rolled the newly-filled orb around on the floor of the wagon. The inside seemed to sparkle, as if it were full of small galaxies wound within an ethereal tapestry. Beatrice could not take her eyes off it. It seemed so fragile, contained within a glass ball held within the leathery palm of a woman she had no cause to trust. _What happens if it breaks?_

"Not so bad, was it?" Sister Celeste gently questioned. Beatrice shook her head. For the most part, she felt fine—perhaps a little dizzy, and a little less sharp, but she was in no pain whatsoever.

"The wall is just north of here. Five minutes from where we sit right now. _Go_, young Beatrice. Climb the wall, find me that frog, and bring him back here."

"Um, so you're gonna... keep the frog? Once I get it back here, you're just gonna keep it?"

The old woman cracked an uneasy smile. "I care more about safeguarding magical power than I do the nursing of animals. But I do not intend to harm the creature, if that's what you mean to imply." It was true, Beatrice thought: that was essentially what she was getting at.

"And Beatrice—once you've reached the top of the wall, close your eyes and jump down the other side."

"Got it." She briefly considered throwing in a "thank you," but under the circumstances, it didn't feel right.

Beatrice didn't move. She simply sat there, staring blankly at the wagon, its odds and ends balanced precariously on top of each other, on shelves, and on the floor, and the old woman now, once again, rooting through them with no discernible purpose. Perhaps now was time to go. But Beatrice's eyes returned once more to that curious glowing orb—and to the mesmerizing, soft glow of its nebulous contents.

"The older one, with the cap." It was not so much a question as it was merely a statement. Beatrice stirred from her reverie.

"Wirt?"

"He would be about your age now. That's the boy your heart is set on, is it?"

Beatrice scowled. "I told you, I'm _not_-"

"I trust in my intuition, Beatrice, and it does not lead me astray. I suggest that you do the same."

She made her exit.

* * *

Stumbling through the near darkness (she had, naturally, failed to ask for a torch or other light-producing implement, and running back to the wagon and its curious campsite seemed unwise at this juncture), Beatrice moved as fast as her now-tired feet would carry her. She was anxious to get away from Sister Celeste, but the darkness offered little comfort. She moved considerably lighter now, having left her pack back at the canoe on which she arrived—_wait_. _Oh no._ Her pack.

She swiveled around, mid-thought, immediately reorienting herself to where she assumed the banks of the now-distant lake were. The fog had not dissipated at all through the night, and the new moon made the night all the more darker. She considered for a moment that she might not find a way back to the shores, that perhaps it would be better to continue onward without—_smack!_

Beatrice ran headfirst into a solid wall of interlaid stones of varying sizes, each of them smooth, but completely solid and unbreakable—the pain running through her face attested to that. She collapsed onto the wet grass beneath her. For a spell, she was quite literally stunned; how, she puzzled, could she have gotten so turned around in this miserable fog and in this impenetrably black night that she could _walk into a wall? _She scowled at the wall and began to collect herself. The cold dew of the not-yet-breaking dawn had seeped into the seat of her ill-fitting pants (which were courtesy of the Woodsman and _certainly_ not designed for female bodies), and she felt profoundly uncomfortable. Something about this wall was unnatural, and she could feel it.

She pressed a palm against the smooth stones and pondered how she might climb up a wall without any discernible ledges or hard surfaces. As a young girl, Beatrice had been quite fond of climbing—trees, mostly, but small fences, even some boulders out in the wilderness. Her parents tolerated her boyish tendencies, as they always had, though as she grew older she had begun to wonder whether they always kept her home when they went into town—and into polite society—because she was so wholly unpresentable. What would they think of her now, she wondered, wearing wet, ratty mens' hiking garb, rubbing her sore posterior, and staring intently at a wall she had no business climbing? Not to mention the fact that she'd just agreed to loan a piece of her immortal soul to a crazy lady in a wagon in exchange for a frog she didn't even know how to find.

They probably wouldn't be surprised.

The fact that she was doing it for a boy, though—that might come as a bit of a shock.

With a bit of a running start, Beatrice lept forward onto the wall, palms facing forward, though she did not expect to gain a useful grip. She was wrong. As soon as she began climbing—and by this, began _believing _that she was climbing the wall—her fingers found their holds, and she gained traction. Slowly she lifted herself up, pacing herself so as to avoid slipping on the slick stones and bruising her backside even more. Sweat-polished locks of her cardinal red hair fell gently down her face as she pressed onward and upward. The fog seemed to grow deeper as she moved.

The top came sooner than Beatrice expected, though there was no real way to determine, in the dense fog, how tall the wall was from the ground. She flung her body up with as much upper body strength as she had left in her, and landed herself on the rim. She could see nothing but fog and the rocks beneath her. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and rolled onto the other side. Maintaining a grip would have been entirely impossible at this point; she did not try.

Time elapsed.

The air smelled different on the other side.


End file.
